


Tumblr Miscellany 2013

by welkinalauda (iiii)



Series: Salvaged from Tumblr [1]
Category: Tumblr - Fandom
Genre: I blame the patriarchy, jury nullification, standard wardrobe rant, subtractive masculinity, talking maps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-15 13:35:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16934217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iiii/pseuds/welkinalauda





	Tumblr Miscellany 2013

[1/12/13](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/40393805193/to-appreciate-just-how-bizarre-it-is-to-collapse-a)

Rene Magritte answered the “anti-porn = anti-sex” nonsense in 1928 with “The Treachery of Images." 

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b9/MagrittePipe.jpg](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fen%2Fb%2Fb9%2FMagrittePipe.jpg&t=YTg3YWNjODRkY2M3YTMyOTlhOGUyZmJkNGU3OGY2M2UwYjRmOGE1MixYN0lkMXhHMw%3D%3D&b=t%3A0uBFBznWrCGtBXYYAWqPPA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwelkinalauda.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F40393805193%2Fto-appreciate-just-how-bizarre-it-is-to-collapse-a&m=1)

That is not a pipe; it’s a picture of a pipe.  Porn is not sex; it’s pictures of sex. 

 

* * *

 [2/27/13](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/44145117579/please-dont-yell-at-me-carnahan)

“Fake geek girl” is all about subtractive masculinity - the idea that manly things are the things that women do not do.  If women take up a pastime or a profession, it becomes feminine, and men must eschew it.

[http://doctorscience.blogspot.com/2007/11/gay-hatin-and-subtractive-masculinity.html](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fdoctorscience.blogspot.com%2F2007%2F11%2Fgay-hatin-and-subtractive-masculinity.html&t=MTA3NWJhNTdiYWQ2MDdkMjIyNjVlZTM3Y2Q1MGMwMTk1MmUyMmQzZCxrSTEwSUhGUQ%3D%3D&b=t%3A0uBFBznWrCGtBXYYAWqPPA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwelkinalauda.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F44145117579%2Fplease-dont-yell-at-me-carnahan&m=1)

If girls are really geeks, then geeks are really girls, and there is no identity left for the poor beleaguered geek boy. Therefore, girls can’t  **really**  be geeks. QED.

 

* * *

 

[3/10/13](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/45051412602/sloppy-statistics-do-50-of-americans-really)

I’m with Kate Harding on this one - 90% of US women change their names on marriage, less than 1% of US men change their names on marriage, and every damn time someone suggests that the reason for that might be structural sexism, there’s an avalanche of women chanting about personal choice and how dare you attack their identity as feminists by mentioning this at all ever.  Which, in my opinion, is a lot of what’s actually wrong with white western feminism.

 

* * *

[4/5/13](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/47246302118/rrrrrrrrj-gingerhaze-look-i-get-it-and-i-used)

Usually?  It’s because her wardrobe contradicts everything else we’re shown or told about her character.  

She’s a brilliant grad student who is lost in her research and has no interest in the world at large… and she’s teaching class in a mini and thigh-highs straight off a fashion week runway.

She’s a young, black reporter in a small Midwestern town, on her first day back to work after burying her much-beloved father… and she’s wearing a beige “shrunken” suit that visually reads as a ring of arrows pointing in at her cleavage.

She’s a suburban mother of three, on her way to pick up the kids at soccer… in skintight yoga pants and a shirt unbuttoned well past her cleavage.

Meanwhile, the men in the same scenes are wearing chinos and a button-down, jeans and flannel, t-shirt and sweats - something pretty close to what an actual person would wear under those conditions.

When they dress the male characters for the conditions of the scene, and they dress the female characters to go dancing, they are telling us that those female characters are the sort of women whose first, last, only consideration is the male gaze.  I’ve met a few (very few) women like that in real life, and my god, but they’re horrible people.  When the producers tell the costumers to tell the audience that the female characters are horrible people, there’s only so much the writers or the actresses can do to counteract that.

And the fans will hate the female characters.

* * *

 

[5/13/13](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/50396376861/we-are-star-stuff-who-says-north-is-up-upside)

Good start, yes, but this is still a Mercator projection (or something very like it).  Mercator projection is quite well-suited to sailing around using celestial navigation, so I don’t want to dismiss it entirely; I might find myself in a situation, you know?

But.

Mercator projection magnifies the apparent size of land masses proportionate to how far north they are.  Greenland, which looks like a mighty continent in Mercator projection, is in fact less than a third the size of Australia.  And - funny coincidence - the countries of the (wealthier, colonizing) global north come out hugely magnified in size compared to the countries of the (poorer, colonized) global south.  

I prefer Fuller projection, myself.

 

* * *

 [5/15/13](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/50499720542/muckrakingiswomenswork-was-reading-this-today) Jury nullification is one of the reasons it’s so damn hard to put rapists in prison. Even if the cops and prosecutors are doing their jobs, the jury can still nullify.  And they do.  A lot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

[5/21/13](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/51026601852/if-i-ask-you-to-smile-im-only-encouraging-you-to)

No, no.  Telling me to smile is not encouraging me to be happy.  Telling me to smile is ordering me to display a happiness-signifier on command.  It’s a dominance display, intended to inspire a submission display.

And I can’t walk away without a second thought.  I can walk away wondering if this is another asshole who’ll follow me down the street screaming that I’m a bitch because I ignored him instead of following his orders.  I can walk away wondering if this one will be satisfied with just screaming at me if he catches up, or if this one will hurt me.    

A few months back, about three blocks from where I live, a man stabbed a woman on the street for not responding to his “friendly” overtures.  They were strangers to each other.  

Don’t tell me I can walk away without a second thought.

 

* * *

[8/8/13](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/57769668005/people-who-believe-theyll-be-happy-if-they-go-and)

Moving may not make you happy, but it does do a fair job of sorting out which part of your misery was situational and which part you should maybe get some help with.

 

* * *

 

 [8/17/13](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/58538062789/beaucoupshade-stfusexists) On Hugo Schwyzer

Two disagreements - 

It’s an overstatement to claim Jill Filipovic was promoting this jackass, especially when you put her in the same clause with Jessica Coen and Amanda Marcotte.  Jessica Coen kept publishing his essays promoting man-centered ‘feminism’ even after his confession of attempted murder was brought to her attention.  Her website’s moderators deleted comments critical of him, and banned longtime commenters there for pressing the matter.  Amanda Marcotte vocally defended him all over the web, again, after it was brought to her attention that he considered trying to kill a woman a sin on par with accidentally letting a dog out.  

Jill, by contrast, failed to veto a guest blogger’s interview with Hugo, failed to intervene in that guest blogger’s mishandling of the ensuing comment thread, failed to take active part in the ensuing brisk exchange of ideas, posted a denunciation of Hugo which was insufficiently denunciatory ([http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2012/01/17/on-the-hugo-business/](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.feministe.us%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2012%2F01%2F17%2Fon-the-hugo-business%2F&t=MDlmOTA4NTA1ZWE5NGVhNmFjMWVlMzM1MDE2ODEzZWNiZWI5MzAzOSxraGppc2RHNA%3D%3D&b=t%3A0uBFBznWrCGtBXYYAWqPPA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwelkinalauda.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F58538062789%2Fbeaucoupshade-stfusexists&m=1)), and then ignored him for a year and a half.  There’s a lot of fails to lay at her door, but how does all that add up to her promoting him?  You want to say Feministe promoted him, you’ve got a point.  But why sub in Jill’s name for Feministe?  Why erase Clarisse Thorn - the one who was actively cheerleading for Hugo - so utterly?  What about Caperton, who was the regular blogger providing most of the content in the winter of '11-'12?  Jill’s the big name, so none of the other contributors there have any agency or accountability?  Their actions are Jill’s?  WTF?

Second, “don’t give him the attention” was exactly what Jill has been trying to do.  ([http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2013/08/14/solidarityisforwhitewomen-reckonings-and-thoughts/](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.feministe.us%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2013%2F08%2F14%2Fsolidarityisforwhitewomen-reckonings-and-thoughts%2F&t=MDg5NzQ0NjhhNjc4MzZmMjBiZGY2M2E1OTUzMmJkZjYwZmMxOGVhMSxraGppc2RHNA%3D%3D&b=t%3A0uBFBznWrCGtBXYYAWqPPA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwelkinalauda.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F58538062789%2Fbeaucoupshade-stfusexists&m=1))  And here he is, back again, smearing his crap all over.  We’ve been trying the “don’t feed the trolls” method for what? twenty years now?  We have a *lot* of experimental evidence here.  IT DOESN’T WORK.  Let’s try something else.  How about, anytime, anywhere this jackass shows up, everyone who can stand to engage tells him to fuck off.  Everyone who can stand to read his work make a project of figuring out who he cribbed from this time and promoting her, and/or picking out what he got wrong and explaining how wrong he is this time.  It’s a lot to ask, I know.  I sure as hell don’t want to read his excretetions.  But it will surely do more good than fastidiously ignoring him and leaving the field clear for him to start spinning his 'redemption’ tales again.

eta: I called for everyone who can stand to do it to vocally oppose HS, and I meant that.  But: women of color have been doing that for years.  It is past time for us nice white ladies to start pulling our own weight.  We should step up.

 

* * *

 [7/13/13](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/55388992536/muckrakingiswomenswork-was-reading-this-today)

The next time someone tells you what a wonderful thing jury nullification is, think about the Zimmerman verdict.

 

* * *

[9/1/13](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/59946513791/anon-here-cause-i-dont-feel-like-people-coming)

I kinda feel like the folks in the 16-24 US size range are the FA equivalent of Nice White Ladies.  Because yes, the oppression they experience is real and they’re very much entitled to speak their own truth and seek their own liberation.  But no, they aren’t necessarily conscientious about (or even cognizant of) the reality that there are people who experience oppression beyond their own, and that they are not entitled to speak for/over those who are further oppressed.  And they tend to get all pissy when one of the further oppressed dismisses their overspeaking without the tonguebath their relative privilege has taught them to expect.

I <3 Marianne and all, but without some specific context, I’m seeing that article as part of the long tradition of ill-advised accommodationism from erstwhile firebrands afforded a respectable platform.

* * *

[11/4/13](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/66007626210/theveganarchist-stfuconservatives)

Remember the Zimmerman verdict?  When the jury decided that murdering a black kid wasn’t a crime worth sending a man to prison for?  

 **That’s jury nullification**.  Pass it on.

 

* * *

[12/15/13](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/70101586184/messier51-sheereleganceinitssimplicity-my) why all the women medical examiners?

My understanding is that the ME role makes for a convenient spot to expand the diversity of the cast without having to write plot lines and character arcs for someone who isn’t an abled straight white guy.  The ME in cop shows generally functions as Oracle, and as such, is static.  The heroes descend in to the Land of the Dead (aka the morgue), receive knowledge from the Oracle, and return to the Land of the Living to complete their quest-of-the-week.  The Oracle just stays in the morgue and dispenses knowledge to heroes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Similarly, the hero’s boss (king), who sets the hero’s quests, but whose principal story function is to hear the hero recite exposition so the writers can keep even the slowest member of the audience up to speed, is more and more often not a white guy.

When the ME role is cast with a physically abled straight white guy, the role is generally written as a collection of quirks which may (or may not) be intended to convey that the character is not neurotypical.  The exceptions I can think of off the top of my head are Henry from  _Saving Grace_ , and Quincy.  Quincy, btw, was whitewashed version of Thomas Noguchi, then Chief ME-Coroner of Los Angeles, who was Japanese.

 

* * *

[12/18/13](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/70377309023/riddle-me-this-tumblr) "Why does everyone presume that humans will turn violent and scary in a depopulated post-apoc scenario?"

Three reasons - 

First, the 1977 blackout in NYC.  As far as I know, it’s the only time people have actually behaved badly en masse in response to a widespread emergency.  But that once was enough to demonstrate that it *can* happen that way in real life.

Second, WEIRD.  We spent the twentieth century reading psych studies which represented the idiosyncrasies of the youth of the first-world oppressor class (white, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic - and disproportionately male - college students) as fixtures of human nature.  Worse: the folks who conducted and wrote up those studies tended to presume that those nice white kids were the *best* humanity had to offer, so everyone else must be even uglier inside.

Third, a widespread conviction that only conflict is interesting, and the uglier the conflict, the more interesting it is.  I mean, my personal post-apocalypse fantasy involves a suburban neighborhood communally planting over everyone’s yards to maximize vegetable production the first year while they run through the canned goods and get the corn high enough to supply everyone’s complex carbohydrate needs.  I imagine the big dispute as over where to put the beehive.  But that’s not something that editors would think could sell, you know?  So the highly unlikely high-conflict version remains unchallenged in the collective imagination as our disaster mythos.

 


End file.
